What if Persephone remained a hard woman? An ethics of care turned towards oneself. Love’s harvest, the halves of intimacy in these latitudes. A climate of change revealed as cycle of constant return, how to reconcile, farm my inadequacy for yours or simply distract. Let’s just say for argument’s sake, let’s just say pugilism is always political, platforms cropping hay, the field of absolutes you might travel to. I distil the brackish dark, listen low over the lees, liar strings laid flush to decider core. Store of regrets, bare-knuckled figs, a desire to fall foul. Your rallying jig as jubilant plucked yew. Cross-dressing Orpheus to your Eurydice, I discover I want as a mode. To provoke the strike back, for you to tell me that the light is yours, and it is I who have disengaged song, who must feel my way through the ever-burdened earth. To be called a muffler, bobbing compliment.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 155th birthday.
E.J. Brady Australian 1869 – 1952
Two women watched on a windy pier (Three turns and a line to pass!) And one was the drunken skipper’s dear, And one was a sailor’s lass; The full o’ flood and the fall o’ tide There’s little to guide between, But ways are wide where the seas divide Wi’ places to bide between.
The sun rose red, but the night fell grey — Cheer’ly men, her load-line’s low! Who drinks to-morrow may thirst to-day — Cheer’ly men, still cheerily ho!
They trailed her out from the rowdy pier; They turned her nose to the Sea; They lent their lungs to a burly cheer, And speeded her merrily. Her skipper rolled to his bunk dead-tight; Her mate in the scuppers lay, With a starboard red and a green port light To gladden them on their way.
They lit their lamps on the lonely pier As the twilight brought the rain, And the skipper’s dear laughed long and clear, But the other laughed in pain. For woman is woman and man is man And the flesh it pricketh sore — He carries his burden as best he can, She carries her load and more.
Two women turned from the windy pier, One hurried her home to weep: But the skipper’s dear she was married next year To a bank account — and sheep. The ship that sailed as the ship went down (Three turns and a rope to pass!) Is posted “Lost,” and the grass goes brown On the grave o’ the sailor’s lass.
The dank ooze silts where the deep hulk lie — Cheer’ly men — her load-line’s low! For men may drown and women will die — Cheer’ly men, still cheerily ho!
A predilection for stone fruit sees a trail of peach and plum stones in his shadow You had traced him down this discreet path to where his casual touch was six light insect feet on your forearm
In the magazine you read about the ten sexiest women for April; they all live in suburbs beginning with W and wear impossible shoes
You hunt for modern equivalents of One hundred ways with mince and watch his hand become refined under its wedding ring, the fingers longer and nails less bitten
He coaxes your shoulders straight, uncurling them with firm hands
but you were merely bent over with laughter Now your tongue forks into four: one part for being good-natured one for lamentation the third part of irony and the last for an imaginary language
You move to a newly-invented suburb beginning with X where you will use the four parts of the tongue with equilibrium
We present this work in honor of Western Australia Day.
Caroline Caddy Australian b. 1944
Driving into the cut-out mountains
their steepness pushes them closer
as if the tops of much younger ranges crowded together.
We peer past each other’s heads and shoulders
as blue thresholds open to reveal
desiccated sides and ridges
weathered tors just high enough
to impede winter clouds.
We can hardly believe these sun-blasted screes
are those elusive slopes ahead
layered gates behind.
Stop. Get out of the car
wind through stunted trees
water where there is none
and up against as close as a tango
the mountain’s shattered stone the smell of stone
the sound of stone.
Their age is their beauty.
It attracts like iron.
Go outside. Find a patch of grass, sand, dirt. Sit, kneel, place a hand or just A finger to the soft earth. Feel it pulse back.
Open your palms and divine The words creased between. Rub the specks of dirt Between your fingers, See how they cling to skin, How they listen in their soft-rough way.
The earth will hold you better Than God can. God could not stop the bullets Or the sale of weapons. God could not block the open Synagogue doors.
But we keep saying, Shema, Listen. Israel. Our God is One. Singular. Invisible. Hiding in plain sight.
But listen, Israel, our God is beneath Our feet, between Our fingers, coursing Through our veins.
Our God is trapped In the poisoned grass, Where the blood of our brothers cries out, Where the ants heave centuries on their backs.
Pray to the God who sharpened the tiger’s teeth, Who stored the roar in its throat. Pray to the God who gave you lungs and tongue To sing and groan and hum.
I swear to you When the leaf shivers in the wind You have given it chills From all its listening.
The earth hears your prayer. There is nowhere for God to hide. Get down on your knees and let This precious earth soften for the weight of you.
You are held. You are heard. The wind pulls its blanket over your back, Smooths the hair from your face, Touches your cheek With its cool, trembling hands.
We present this work in honor of April Fool’s Day.
W.T. Goodge Australian 1862 – 1909
“You talk of snakes,” said Jack the Rat, “But blow me, one hot summer, I seen a thing that knocked me flat – Fourteen foot long or more than that, It was a reg’lar hummer! Lay right along a sort of bog, Just like a log!
“The ugly thing was lyin’ there And not a sign o’ movin’, Give any man a nasty scare; Seen nothin’ like it anywhere Since I first started drovin’. And yet it didn’t scare my dog. Looked like a log!
“I had to cross that bog, yer see, And bluey I was humpin’; But wonderin’ what that thing could be A-lyin’ there in front o’ me I didn’t feel like jumpin’. Yet, though I shivered like a frog, It seemed a log!
“I takes a leap and lands right on The back of that there whopper!” He stopped. We waited. Then Big Mac Remarked: “Well, then, what happened, Jack?” “Not much,” said Jack, and drained his grog. “It was a log!”
I camped last night in a desert grey ‘Neath the eyes of a million stars, For they all had come in their vestments gay, Like a laughing host in the wake of day, To the shrine of the midnight bars. And satyrs slid on the glinting spars Of light, through the halls of space, And Venus served from the vintage jars, And a blossom shone on the nose of Mars And a smile on the old Moon’s face. My castle’s roof was the spangled sky And its carpet of sea-green moss; And its walls were curtained with tapestry,… And the face of her I had kissed Good-bye Was enshrined in the Southern Cross. As I gazed, the stars kept clustering, And closer and closer crept, Until I and they, we were all a-swing, When an owl flew down on a drowsy wing And we blew out the light… and slept.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 85th birthday.
Les Murray Australian 1938 – 2019
The word goes round Repins, the murmur goes round Lorenzinis, at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers, the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club: There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing: There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps not like a child, not like the wind, like a man and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow, and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo or force stood around him. There is no such thing. Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood, the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children and such as look out of Paradise come near him and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit— and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand and shake as she receives the gift of weeping; as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance, but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing, the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow, hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea— and when he stops, he simply walks between us mopping his face with the dignity of one man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.
Poets Corner 